Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Basic Research

Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) program is expanding our understanding of the evolution and structure of the universe by providing the largest uniform, detailed archive of objects in the skies that has ever existed.

In cooperation with the Astrophysical Research Consortium, the Foundation has helped build and operate a specially designed telescope to observe and archive galaxies, quasars and other cosmological phenomena. Data collected through the SDSS is providing an increasingly detailed picture of the universe, including data bearing on the curvature of the universe itself, on the existence of dark energy, and on the features of the Milky Way.